Teachers in threat to boycott tests

VAST areas of the Government's education policy were yesterday thrown into disarray as the National Union of Teachers promised to scupper national tests and strike if necessary to stop funding cuts causing job losses.

VAST areas of the Government's education policy were yesterday thrown into disarray as the National Union of Teachers promised to scupper national tests and strike if necessary to stop funding cuts causing job losses.

A quarter of a million teachers in Wales and England will be balloted some time in the next 12 months on a boycott of primary and secondary national curriculum tests due to be taken by around two million children in 2004.

And, as the school budgets row continued, the union's annual conference in Harrogate voted unanimously in favour of industrial action, including strikes if necessary, if NUT members were made redundant as a result.

The tests could be in even more trouble by the end of next week because the NUT's closest rival, the 211,000-strong National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, will debate calls for abolition of those taken by seven and 14-year-olds at its annual conference in Bournemouth on Friday.

The NUT has voted for a boycott involving refusing to enter children for the tests at seven, 11 and 14 in England.

In Wales, the boycott will apply to older children as the Welsh Assembly has already abolished tests for seven-year-olds. One NUT activist claimed the tests were a form of "child abuse" that fuelled rising rates of mental illness.

Teachers last boycotted the tests in 1993-94, soon after they were introduced, and wrung concessions from the then Conservative govern-ment which led to a slimming down of the workload associated with the national curriculum.

However, the profession has never liked them and has been particularly annoyed by their use to rank schools in league tables.

Last week, the more moderate Association of Teachers and Lecturers held back from voting to boycott English tests for 14-year-olds amid concerns about the legality of such a move under trade union law.

But Mr McAvoy said the NUT was convinced it had the law on its side and would win the support of parents.

A Department for Education and Skills spokesman said: "Assessment is vital to ensure continued improvements in learning and teaching. It means that a pupil's progress can be tracked enabling teachers to give pupils greater support and motivation."

On Friday, the NUT produced a report showing schools faced deficits of up to #750,000 this year. Earlier in the week, school standards minister David Miliband said up to #500m had yet to make its way from local education authorities to individual primaries and secondaries.

The union also voted overwhelmingly in favour of a demand that schools should not be forced to take back pupils expelled for violent or seriously disruptive behaviour.